The present invention relates to a floating disk brake suitable for braking a two-wheeled vehicle.
In general, two types of disk brakes are available for two-wheeled vehicles. In one of these types, a floating caliper is supported by a fixing member which is mounted on a member of the vehicle body such as a front fork. In the other type of disk brake, a torque receiving part is formed integrally with the front fork, and the caliper is slid in the axial direction of the disk rotor as the pads wear.
The former type of disk brake is disadvantageous in that, as the disk brake requires the fixing member, it is relatively heavy. Also, since the fixing member is disposed between the caliper and the front fork, the center of gravity of the caliper is offset from the fork center, and hence its inertial moment relative to the fork is large, which lowers the handling characteristics of the motorbike.
The latter disk brake type, although superior to the above-described disk brake in performance, suffers from the difficulty that the torque receiving part lying over the disk rotor must be formed on the front fork so as to extend therefrom. Thus, the structure of the front fork is intricate and the manufacturing cost thereof is high. Furthermore, in the other type of disk brake, it is difficult to make the right and left pads of the same configuration. Therefore, because the pads cannot be interchanged, they are more expensive.